Re: Proposal Writing

["Mike Starr" <mikestarr-techwr-l -at- writestarr -dot- com>]

Hey, congratulations!!! I'm not entirely clear on whether you wrote the 
proposal to provide services yourself or if you wrote the proposal for 
someone else to provide their services. However, IIRC, all proposals 
submitted become public documents and you could certainly get copies of the 
losing proposals and contact those firms to offer your services for the next 
contract.

I've only worked on a couple proposals and have no idea what the results 
were as my time on that assignment came to an end before the results were 
in. One was for the company where I was contracted and the other was for a 
client of that company. The client had contacted her area rep for our 
company who referred her to me. Turns out I was only supposed to give her 
advice but I didn't realize that so I overhauled her entire proposal and she 
just gushed to my boss with praise. I got a minor scolding for doing more 
than I was supposed to. It was certainly an interesting new experience for 
me as I had to do a lot of careful reading of the RFPs to make sure that the 
final proposals met all of the requirements outlined.

I'm pretty sure STC has a SIG that addresses that aspect of technical 
communication. Don't know if you're an STC member but my experience with 
STC's SIGs has been overwhelmingly positive.

Best regards,

Mike
--
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>
To: "'TECHWR-L'" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 7:44 PM
Subject: Proposal Writing

> I'm sure you're all waiting with baited breath to see how my first state 
> bid
> proposal "ever" turned out.  Well having never seen a winning bid before, 
> I
> really didn't know what one should look like, although I have written
> winning marketing proposals, business plans, and FSRs before.  I guess I
> winged it alright, though, we won.  The contract needs a commission review
> because it is over $100,000 and the commission won't meet until the end of
> the month, so the contract won't be awarded until after their meeting and
> probably after the July 4th holiday.  I'll keep that number in mind for 
> the
> next proposal and keep the costs to $99,999 or less.
>
> I really like this proposal writing stuff.  My friend is really excited 
> that
> we won because he's been a CMAS contractor for a few years and he's
> submitted about 6 proposals, all without wins.  I guess winning the state
> contract is a big deal.
>
> I want to do more proposals and get another business plan to write.  It
> could probably be a good career move for me.  So what I to know, is what 
> is
> a good direction to take to market my new found career possibility?
>
> Lauren
>
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